Card Technology articles from November 2007

Card Technology archives from November 2007

Getting Fooled Less Than Others: He'd plop down a stack of past issues of Card Technology and say, 'Here learn the industry'.
November 1, 2007... Bertrand du Castel, former director of research for smart card vendor Axalto, used to tell me that whenever he had a new hire, he'd plop down a stack of past issues of Card Technology in front of him and say, "Here, learn the industry." ...

Battle Continues For Control Of NFC Applications: 'Additional layers would be proprietary until you finalize the standard. Then we will not be able to switch to a full range of handsets.'.
November 1, 2007... Nokia, the world's largest handset maker, and Gemalto, the No. 1 supplier of SIM cards, have again been facing off in standards bodies over the future functionality of the SIM. The two were at odds before over how to give the SIM a...

Newswatch: Asia.
November 1, 2007... VISA SNAGS HYPERMARKET CHAIN FOR CONTACTLESS PROGRAM Visa International announced the largest hypermarket chain in Taiwan, Carrefour, would accept its contactless application, Visa payWave, as part of a cobranded card program involving...

Newswatch: Europe.
November 1, 2007... TELCO DISCLOSES PLANS FOR 'PAY-BUY MOBILE' TRIAL Turkey's largest mobile network operator and one of its largest banks plan to launch a small mobile-payment trial before the end of the year using phones that support Near Field...

Top Dog Among Secure Elements?
November 1, 2007... Business interests are again clashing on the SIM committee of the European Telecommunciations Standards Institute. This time the dispute involves the "host-controller interface" and how much control it would give SIM cards in NFC phones....

Where To Put The Look And Feel Of NFC?
November 1, 2007... When it comes to uses for contactless mobile phones that support NFC technology, most talk is about the payment, transit-ticketing and couponing consumers could do with a tap of the phones. But more attention is being paid of late to how...

Accessing NFC.
November 1, 2007... Tapping an NFC phone to make purchases or spending transit tickets may eventually be convenient, but not if the services aren't easily accessible to subscribers through the user-interface application. This takes in the menus and icons consumers...

Making House Calls With NFC Mobile Phones To Make House Calls: While the potential consumer market for NFC gets the most attention, Home health care organizations in the netherlands have been using NFC phones for nearly two years.
November 1, 2007... Home health care workers in the Netherlands, like those just about everywhere else, always carry their mobile phones with them when they visit patients. But the main reason a growing number of Dutch nurses and other home-care providers...

Converging On Ticketing: Are Banks And Transit Operators Ready?
November 1, 2007... The idea of allowing commuters to tap their contactless credit or debit cards to board subway trains or buses continues to make the rounds. But the concept hasn't yet pulled out of the station. Banks and transit agencies would have to...

Riding the Rails.
November 1, 2007... The idea of banks issuing cards combining their own applications and transit fare collection has been much talked about but little tried. The business case is, as yet, uncertain. There are a growing number of examples, however, of banks issuing...

The Industry's New Look: A new reality has settled over the smart card industry: It's survival of the fittest, and card vendors have stepped up their cost-cutting measures in a drive to return to profitability.(Company overview)
November 1, 2007... Philippe d'Andrea had a problem. As one of the architects of France-based Safran's purchase of German smart card vendor Orga, d'Andrea believed combining Orga with Safran's own Sagem smart card unit would be just the thing the two...

Vendors Move Production To Low-Cost Countries.
November 1, 2007... Restructuring by the industry's top four card vendors is consolidating supply of SIMs, with expansion in Asia and plant closings in Western Europe. Some banking cards are also affected. The major moves: 1 France-based Gemalto closes...

Industry In Motion.
November 1, 2007... The industry's five largest smart card vendors in terms of shipments have been trying to cope with falling prices and profits. A rundown: Vendor 2006 Shipments* % change 2006 Revenue % change (Home base)...

Looking for Profits.
November 1, 2007... Working On The Margins The world's No. 1 smart card vendor, Gemalto, and its competitors had a tough year in 2006, and the problems continued during the first half of 2007. But restructuring and sustained demand are helping them turn the...